Camps in U.K.
It would be interesting to compare the U.S. reports on British camps with their reports on German ones. Unfortunately any useful comparison is impossible. A collection of reports on “various internment camps in the United Kingdom” is published in White Paper No. 30 (1916), but the earliest inspection here recorded took place on February 21, 1916. As the chief difficulties everywhere occurred earlier, the earlier reports are plainly necessary for a fair comparison. “Are we as compassionate to our prisoners as our ancestors were to theirs?” wrote the Daily Chronicle on October 29, 1914, and added “From accounts that have reached us of the conditions that prevail at some of our concentration camps, we fear not.” Moreover, in these later reports it is difficult to know the exact meaning of such remarks as the following, unless we have the earlier reports: “They seemed much happier and more contented than at the time of my former visit....” (Officers’ Camp, Holyport). “There has been no change in the sleeping accommodations since the last report, but as the number of the prisoners is much less than it was at that time, there is much more room....” (Dorchester.)
“The general tone of the hospital seemed to be much happier than at the time of my last visit.” (Dartford, Lower Southern Hospital for wounded prisoners of war.)
“There has been no change in the sleeping accommodation since the last visit, except that, owing to the smaller number of men, there is now more room than before.... The men seemed much happier and more contented than at the time of our last visit.” (Officers’ camp, Donington Hall.)
The last quotation recalls the once famous charges as to the excessive luxury of Donington Hall. In every country the same kind of protest arises as to the luxurious treatment of prisoners, and this is declared a scandal in view of the inhuman policy of the enemy. In every country is to be found the type of patriot who feels that all is lost if it can be proved that he has treated an enemy too well. The hubbub about Donington Hall led to the appointment of a Commons delegation to visit various camps, and to a report in the Times (April 26, 1915). In this report the Hall is described as “a large, bare house situated in a hollow.... The style of furnishing was that of a sergeant’s mess.” There was one piano, provided at the prisoners’ expense. The billiard tables and other accessories imagined by perfervid patriots vanish into thin air.
Dyffryn Aled Officers’ camp in North Wales is described in the same account as “an inaccessible, gloomy, mildewed-looking house, with all the windows on the front side covered with iron bars. It was previously used as a private lunatic asylum. The kitchen seemed about the best room in the house.... There are no fixed baths, but the officers’ valets carry hot water from the kitchen for hip baths.” As regards the site of Dyffryn Aled it is only fair to quote the U.S. report: “The situation of the house, in a romantic valley among the Welsh mountains, is fine and healthy.” But even in April, 1916, the bathing arrangements remained primitive: “Each officer has his tin tub.” One would certainly not wish to make any hardship of this, yet it is perhaps as well to recall the U.S. reports on Friedberg and Crefeld in May and April, 1915, respectively. “The room containing the shower-nozzles would ... do credit to a club or hotel of the first class.” (See p. [23].) At Crefeld: “The bathroom which I saw has a floor space of about 1,500 square feet, one-half of which, drained in the centre, lies under some 20 shower nozzles. There are a couple of porcelain tubs in the other half, and in the centre there is a large stove. Hot and cold water is available. The British officers were enthusiastic in their praise of this room.” (P. [13].)